To remain competitive, modern day enterprises need information systems that serve and adapt to their complex needs. Many businesses or enterprises use object-oriented databases to maintain and update information about business objects used in these information systems. Business objects represent real world things such as employees, products, invoices, or payments, as examples. These objects can become complex and have multiple attributes, or characteristics, that provide information about the object. The attributes of an object typically reside in a database table.
With the advent of relatively high-powered mobile devices, many users access the databases from these devices, even though the devices generally have a relatively small user interface area. In most current mobile user interfaces, lists are used to organize and display data. These lists are generally limited to one attribute for a typical object. However, the complexity of the business objects makes defining them by only one attribute inadequate. This also imposes a limitation on sorting, as the user can only sort by the attribute shown in the list.
One solution involves presenting a table on the user interface. Because of the size limitations, however, the user has to scroll extensively in the horizontal direction to view other portions of the table. Even further, the user cannot really see the whole table in the user interface, as the type is too small to see clearly. The ability to access a database by a mobile device is hampered by the size of the user interface or screen inherent in the devices.